BIGGEST Mistake in Portrait Drawing: Anatomy Lesson

[@artprof]

Watch our tutorial on drawing a portrait in soft pastel: kzbin.infoCOnysuuwsoc?feature=share

[@dopapier]

Thanks for this - for the clarity and detail and, particularly, for not having music playing, that amateur technique that thinks we want a recital at the same time as a talk!

[@anawieder5003]

oh yeah I had to sculpt a few sculls in school and it definitely changed my approach to painting the face

[@gardeniainbloom812]

another great mini masterclass

[@NelaDunato]

I must've drawn hundreds of human and animal skulls in my life, and I got a life-sized model just like the one you're holding a few years ago... But I'm still confused how to apply it when drawing a portrait of a person with a more fleshy face 🤔 I'm quite skinny, so you can see many of the landmarks on my face, but my partner's face is very soft and modeling shadows on it has been an ongoing challenge 😅 Same goes for children I guess (I don't even dare going there). And of course, most of the time I forget to look for the skull landmarks apart from the eye sockets and the jaw. Your demo sketch of Debbie Harry's face superimposed on a skull has been such a useful lesson, and probably something all art students and enthusiasts should try at least once.

[@artprof]

A lot of it has to do with having a portrait reference with really excellent lighting, usually if the lighting is bad to begin with it's really tough to show that volume. -Prof Lieu

[@scooterkidz1657]

Thank you so much for this! Yesterday I watched a video in which one of my favorite KZbin artists created a whole portrait. They usually create more landscape type paintings. With this portrait experiment they did a very good job painting something beautiful that they’re still learning themselves, and I appreciated greatly that they painted it on camera for us all and shared their actual learning process with us directly-bc many of us have the same struggles this artist went through on camera. I thought the end portrait result was beautiful, and in the moment yesterday, I sincerely thought the portrait was intentionally very ‘stylized’… but now after seeing your video (THIS video)…. I’m actually thinking, realizing, understanding… and now I don’t think that portrait result was actually intended to be so significantly stylized…. I now think they were unintentionally missing the underlying structures of the skull… they focused on the details of the eyes very early and struggled with matching sizes and proportional placement. After watching this video of yours, I’m realizing all that struggle with eyes was caused by not having any notable structure on the face or around the eyes. Combining what I saw the other artist do on their video, with the structural knowledge you’ve shared here…. together it helps me to actually see the whole entire big picture more clearly, and I feel like now I better understand the purpose and importance of structure sooooo much more!!!! Thank you!!!! 🙌

[@artprof]

I loved reading this, such great observations you made!! -Prof Lieu

[@jtownhere]

This is such a helpful video! The buddy cameo made it even better 😂

[@artprof]

He was about to travel over all of the drawings in this video, I genuinely freaked out!😂 -Prof Lieu

[@scooterkidz1657]

@@artprofI wanted to see what it was he trampled over! 😆 Thank you for being a real-life kinda person in your videos. Curated perfection can be so monotonous! I appreciate that you don’t edit out all of the real-life things lol.

[@Angela-jy8um]

This is a great video. Thank you for sharing!

[@butterpoweredbike6135]

I need to check to see if any local libraries check out anatomy skulls.

[@artprof]

Great idea! -Prof Lieu

[@kali-66]

You're a great teacher

[@artprof]

Thank you! 😃 -Prof Lieu

[@drawingmomentum]

Ur awesome for being so straightforward, down-to-earth and fun in all the advice u share. 😊 💖 I have to admit my mind wandered off, thinking about the fantastical artists who painted faces out of fruits and vegetables. Have u seen those? 😂 Also, if u draw zombies with their skin dripping off, u'll def need to know the skull.

[@Tom-t8f]

Teacher , where can I get a skull model like you have ?

[@artprof]

I got mine from Amazon! amzn.to/405RmFp -Prof Lieu

[@Tom-t8f]

@artprof Thanks Professor Leiu ! Great job !

[@estherljonesdotcomartist5505]

Ok, but isn't each person's skull unique? Therefore studying one skull will only help to a point? Sorry, I'm definitely a beginner in portraiture.

[@artprof]

Definitely! While certainly there are differences between people’s skulls, most of the dramatic, visible differences are in the muscle and fat that are on a person’s face. So even if a skull has a different shape as another, a lot of that gets obscured by the musculature and doesn’t matter as much. -Prof Lieu

[@jojojo8835]

I’m thinking that too- I would love to see skull references for different ethnicities, especially because the famous life-drawing textbooks are all using Caucasian models. I suspect I’d have to find someone who does forensic reconstructions of murder victims in every single country!

[@NelaDunato]

Gender and ethnicity differences in skulls are still very subtle, but age impacts the shape of the skull and head proportions dramatically, so I think that variable is more important than any other. Models of child skulls and elderly people are not as readily available as the default "young adult", I've only found very expensive ones.